Chapter Eleven Inana
Chapter Eleven
Inana
Dominic holds my gaze, jaw tense, before facing the wagon. “We need to go. Now. Calvin, hitch the horses. We’re leaving.”
Calvin obeys, striding across the clearing to where the horses were tethered to graze.
The rest of us exchange looks. None of us are keen to argue with his decision to leave after having been surrounded by Shades, but I don’t fully understand his haste.
Until I saw that flash of light, I wasn’t afraid.
Just like Dominic had said, our art calmed the monsters.
Their postures slackened. Some had begun to drift away. What we were doing was working.
He’s the one who interrupted us with that…that light. It wasn’t a burst of flame or anything natural. It was solar astrotheurgy. The same kind of light used to ignite the Holy Braziers. The kind of magic that requires a heart sacrifice.
I narrow my eyes at him as he approaches us with a cloth sack, but what he extracts steals all my attention.
“Keep these with you from now on,” he says, handing Bard the same bronze mask he wore at the Wretched Lair, its shape reminiscent of a wolf’s face.
Then he gives Harlow hers, an elegant oval decorated in roses and twining snakes.
Finally he hands me mine. I stare wide-eyed at the floral filigree, the sunbeam spikes at the top, the trailing beads.
“Where did you get these?” I ask.
“Rockefeller. Before we left Nalheim. It’s essential that Summoners work masked. Keep yours hidden beneath your cloaks unless you’re doing anything that could draw Shades. So next time you engage in story time, make sure you protect your fucking faces.”
“Why didn’t you give these to us from the start?” I say as I tuck my mask into one of the padded pockets on the inside of my cloak.
“I didn’t think you were going to do something so reckless before we’d even begun to train.”
I scoff. “We were conversing during daylight. I already told you I wasn’t lying. Furthermore, why didn’t you give us these instead of telling us to raise our hoods?”
“You had your cloaks on your person.”
“When you gave us our things,” Bard says, accusation lacing his normally empty tone, “you could have handed them over.”
Dominic rubs a hand along the sharp line of his bearded jaw, brow furrowed as if he’s debating telling us something. He seems to think better of it and stalks toward his sword and whatever other belongings he left by the stream.
I shadow his steps. “Could it be you were hoping we wouldn’t see your little display if we had our heads lowered?”
“Whatever do you mean.” His voice is flat, devoid of question. He straps on his sword, gathers the cloak he used as a pillow during his nap, then strolls back toward the wagon, where Calvin is still hitching the horses.
I match my pace to Dominic’s. “What were you doing with that Shade? The one under the wagon?”
“Shadowbane business.” He climbs into the driver’s seat, and Calvin hands him the reins.
He’s delusional if he thinks that’s the end of this conversation. Grinding my teeth, I hitch up my skirts and climb right up beside him.
His eyes widen as I plant myself on the seat, our arms pressed together. He fumbles the reins, and once he reclaims his hold on them, he pins me with a hard look. “What are you doing?”
“You etched an astrotheurgical diagram into the ground,” I say, angling myself toward him. “You made a dome of light, just like the dukes and royals do.”
“I saw it too,” Harlow says. She climbs into the wagon bed and stands behind us with her arms crossed. Bard climbs up next, cradling his mandolin. Harlow’s eyes jump to mine. “When you told us about your past, about being a heart sacrifice…”
I nod, then swivel my gaze back to Dominic. “My piece-of-shit ex-lover said he had to consume my heart. That it was the only way he could light the brazier. Does the same go for you?”
Dominic rubs his jaw again, and his defensive walls seem to crumble as he heaves a sigh.
“I don’t use solar astrotheurgy to the same degree as full Sinless do,” he says.
“I use a blood sacrifice, but it isn’t any worse than what you already know about me.
I use Calvin’s blood, from vials we’ve stockpiled for that specific purpose.
Drinking blood activates my ability to use solar magic, but only briefly.
The Holy Brazier requires a greater sacrifice because of its powerful and constant use of astrotheurgy.
That’s why the dukes and royals need a heart sacrifice, and they need one at regular intervals. ”
Calvin snaps his fingers, eyes on me. “That’s why you’re guilty of treason. You know royal secrets. It’s all coming together now.” He taps the side of his head, lips quirked in a grin, then returns to hitching the horses.
“What was the light for?” Harlow asks. “Were you…killing the Shade? I thought that’s what your silver sword is for.”
“Shades in their common form can’t be killed, only calmed and diverted away from villages,” Dominic says.
“My blade can temporarily disperse one, as Shades are sensitive to the brightness of silver, the same way they’re sensitive to sunlight, but it will quickly re-form, and any act of violence against it will send it into a greater frenzy.
The only kind of Shade that can be killed is an Incarnate, which is where my blade matters most. My sword is etched with a diagram like the one I drew in the soil.
” He reaches over his shoulder and grips the hilt of his sword.
He lifts it from its scabbard to reveal an astro–theurgical diagram just below the hilt, almost identical to the one I saw at the bottom of the Holy Brazier two years ago.
“I place a drop of blood on my tongue and another on the circle. That imbues my sword with fire, the combination of silver and flame allowing me to kill an Incarnate.”
“You still haven’t told us what you were doing,” I say. “You did something with one of the Shades. I heard it scream.”
Dominic frowns. “You heard it scream?”
I glance at Bard and Harlow, expecting them to say they too heard that deathly cry. Instead, they wear frowns that mirror Dominic’s.
I bristle, unsettled by the way they’re looking at me. “Can you just answer the question?”
His jaw shifts side to side. “I was capturing a Shade.”
“Because it was wearing your face?”
“Yes.”
The tension in my shoulders eases, his answer calming my anxiety.
If Shades can’t be killed, it makes sense he’d at least capture ones that have taken a step closer to becoming Incarnate.
It’s better than leaving yourself open to their bloodlust. But didn’t he say Shades aren’t interested in imitating Shadowbanes?
Was that…a lie? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised he can lie; he’s still half human.
“Can we go?” he says, a growl in his voice.
“Horses ready,” Calvin says, giving them each an affectionate pat before rounding the wagon to climb into the back.
I bat my lashes at Dominic. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it? Maybe next time we ask you to explain something, just fucking answer.”
His eyes darken, and he leans in closer. “You aren’t the only one with trust issues. Or the only one fighting for something important.”
“You mean being made full Sinless? How noble.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I wonder why that is?”
He leans even closer, teeth bared. My eyes flick to his pointed canines, slightly sharper than a human’s should be.
A phantom touch wraps around my throat, not with pressure but a threat nonetheless.
I see no sign of his Shades with it still being so bright out, but of course one of them is responsible.
Unlike wild Shades, Lust, Sloth, and Pride seem capable of enduring sunlight; it only makes them invisible.
Dominic’s eyes volley between my own. “If you want my trust, earn it, sinner.”
Rage sparks in my chest. My first instinct is to pull away, to shove at the shadow monster’s invisible grip, but something bolder takes over.
Instead of flinching back, I lean into the touch until our faces are mere inches apart.
His pupils narrow to pinpricks as I speak with unfettered anger. “Same to you.”
“For the love of the gods,” comes Harlow’s voice. She sits with a thud. “If you’re going to fuck, just do it already.”
“Language, Ma—” Bard cuts his words off, blinking hard, then aggressively shaking his head. He sits down across from Harlow.
My cheeks blaze as I reassess what I’m doing. How close my face is to Dominic’s. How tightly my hands are balled.
Harlow gives Bard an apologetic smile, then says in a saccharine voice, “If you’re going to fornicate, do it already.”
“Oh, I like her idea,” whispers a voice I recognize as Lust’s. The grip on my throat shifts into a caress.
“Can we go?” Pride says with a grumble. “This bickering is getting tedious.”
“I want my seat back,” says Sloth. Just then I feel something like an enormous paw land on my thigh. “Can I at least climb in her lap?”
I rise in a rush, the phantom touch releasing me just as quickly.
I don’t give Dominic a second glance as I climb over the back of the seat and drop down into the wagon bed.
As soon as I’m seated, Dominic flicks the reins and the wagon lurches into motion.
Harlow’s eyes burn into the side of my face, an annoying smirk on her lips.
I whip my gaze to her and point from me to the Shadowbane. “That’s not what’s happening here.”
She shrugs. “If you say so.”
Calvin takes a swig of his vial before saying, “He’s not usually like that.”
“Ooh,” Harlow says. “So he only wants to hate-fuck Inana?”
“He does not—” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from repeating her words. Not that I’m shy about sex. It’s just that her words are ludicrous. I divert the topic away from me and lower my voice to a whisper. “Aren’t Shadowbanes celibate? They take a vow, right?”
“I am not celibate.” The voice that answers is Dominic’s, setting me on edge all over again. “Shadowbanes vow to keep their naked bodies from being seen in full.”
I choke on a laugh. “Do you fuck your lovers through a curtain, then?”
“No.” He angles his head over his shoulder to meet my eyes. There’s a darkness in his smile. A devious glint in his eyes. “I fuck my lovers while they’re blindfolded.”
That takes the breath from my lungs. The cruel curve of his lips has me picturing things I have no right to imagine.
A woman in a blindfold, crying out in ecstasy as Dominic caresses her skin with his vile tongue.
Him gripping her hips as he slams into her from behind.
Or maybe she’d straddle him, and his hands would rove over her breasts.
Maybe that dark hair of his would be soaked with sweat.
Maybe he’d bite his lip with those sharp canines as he comes—
“Inana.” Dominic’s voice is rough. It pulls me out of my fantasy and makes my cheeks burn hot.
There’s no way he knew what I was thinking, right?
He’s no longer looking at me, his face forward, his posture stiff.
A shadow passes over us as we cross beneath a large tree, and I catch sight of his three Shades, all staring down at me with those dark pits for eyes. “Move to the back of the wagon.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re too close. Move to the back.”
I’m almost of a mind to argue, for who the hell is he to lord it over where I can sit?
But the flush coursing through me finds relief at the idea of widening the distance between us.
So I rise on unsteady legs, blaming it on the motion of the wagon, and sit at the rear of the bed.
I don’t let myself look at Dominic again.
Don’t give myself any reason to return to such vulgar imaginings.
It’s then that I realize just how long it’s been since I’ve been aroused.
After my fiancé’s betrayal, I lost all interest in romance, and living on the run made even emotionless sex a low priority.
Yet that spark I felt as my imagination took over, that sensual heat that pooled low in my belly…
I can’t say I hated it. It was almost as tempting as art.